Wits students reach agreement
JOBURG – Following blame games between the Wits University management, student representative council (SRC) and government, concerning the shortage of funding that is provided by government and administered by Wits through the National Students’ Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS), students and the management reached an agreement.
The shortage of funding is due to the demand for financial aid surpassing the funds dedicated to NSFAS by the State.
The statement released by the university’s professor Andrew Crouch, stated that Wits has decided that the upfront fee payment will be temporarily waived for first-year students who have applied for NSFAS, meet the NSFAS criteria, and who have received an academic offer from the university.
The statement read, “The waiver will apply until such time as the final NSFAS allocations have been made, which is expected to happen by 30 January. Thereafter, for those students who have received NSFAS funding, the waiver will become permanent and they will not have to make the upfront payment. For those students who have been declined NSFAS funding, the waiver will be revoked and they will be given five working days in which to make half of the upfront payment, which amounts to R4 670. If these students are not able to meet this payment, their academic offers will be withdrawn.”
The SRC president, Mcebo Dlamini, also raised concerns regarding the problems in the submission of the documents that are necessary to apply for financial aid.
The university stated that they will assist students who experienced problems and refer these students to the Financial Aid and Scholarships Office. Dlamini said, “With regard to the queries about returning students who have not been given NSFAS, the SRC has undertaken to provide the names of these students to Crouch, who will investigate the matter and provide feedback to the SRC.”
The statement also stipulated that Wits was entirely comfortable with the principle of transparency in these matters and documents will be made available to the SRC upon request.
Prior to this agreement, Dlamini accused the Wits management of being unsympathetic to poor black students, who have struggled to attain the opportunity to be at Wits. He also took a swipe at higher education and training minister Blade Nzimande for the government’s failure to address the critical shortage of NSFAS funds.
Meanwhile, Nzimande said government was committed to expanding the amount of money for poor students as to provide free higher education for poor students. He said, “The NSFAS fund had been increased from R3 billion to R9.5bn over the past five years.”
